Modern Sajan
General information Sajan is one of the currently spoken languages of the world of Rauxor, and comes from the Dizziran branch of the Dalwaric Language group. Spoken by the people of the southern desert, the language that they speak today now more closly resembles the languages of Diniric and those of the Borgothi than it does it's own ancestor tounge. The history of the Sajan language spans a period of roughly 2000 years, beginning back before the fall of the firstborn. Originally, the peoples of the Anu'sajir were nomadic tribesmen, traveling in large clans, each of which had their own dialect, and their own cultural and religeous practices. Around the year 200 by the Thravic count (year 4,500 by Dalwaric count) a select few of these nomadic tribes began to interact, rather than just fight over land, water, and feeding grounds. This trade language evolved slowly, a blend of the tribes' individual dialects, and soon became the language that this confederation of tribes spoke. They later named this language "Sand Speak", or Dizzir'izh. The slaves of the Dizzir were often contained in multi-racial pens, and in time, these races came to intermingle, each city state with it's own mix of cultures, slaves, and languages. This mix led to the creation of a slave language, among the Dizzir. The Dizzir investigated this language briefly, but thought nothing of it. The slaves then overthrew the Dizzir in 612 T.C., beheading the King of the Dizzir. The slave-states, and the Dizzir called them, banded together, forming a new nation and standardising "the slave-tongue" to communicate more efficiently, as the language had differences from city-state to city-state. They also chose the diniric term "Sajan" as a name for their people and their language, it meaning "Of the sands". Over the next decade or so Sajan changed further as the slaves began interacting more and more as the new masters of the city. Their elvish and borgothi heritage made them large and fair, and they began to refer to themselves as the "strong race", and avoided contact with the truly human Dizzir, their tipped ears setting them apart. This said, Sajan adopted many similarities from the "Master's Tongue" at this point, though it could never be called Dizziran. The language still posesses many elements of the slave language, and has many terms from slave life among the Dizzir that related to tasks that were often required of the slaves, and were descriptive of their days. It also borrows some of it's crass nature from it's borgothic roots. It is spoken all throughout the southern desert, and the southern elves and the various tribes of the Borgothi speak the language as a common tongue for trade. The occasional thravic merchants will also pick up some sajan, and drop some of their own tongue. Phonology Consonants The consonants of the Sajan can be loosely grouped according to the letters of the Thravic script. (which has many paralels to the Latin script of earth, but also many discrepancies) These groups are as follows: the soft consonants, the Hard consonants, and the blends. These could also be defined as "voiced", "Unvoiced" and blended. This is less accurate, as the Sajan set G and K together, and F and V. Y is also not considered a Vowel at any time. They use either the I equivilant or the E and the "modifyer" character. Soft consonants include : ZH Z M B D Th (soft, as in "then". ) L F V H (when voiced. almost a "Huh" sound) Y (yellow) R (as in "are") J W Hard consonants include: Sh S T Th (as in "thin") K G H (as in Help) P CH (cheese) Blends N NG Kh (gutteral K, pronounced in the back of the throat. Anytime an H follows a hard consonant or a vowel, it is in it's gutteral form) H gutteral Wh TD (cross, not quite either) PB Hard R, (as in Rats) tZ (a hard Z. used in the word "Khad-Tzir".) tS (equivilant to diniric SS ). RR (rolled R) is also considered a blended sound. They do not have characters for all sounds. Vowels The Sajan have many of our standard vowel sounds. They organize these as well, along the patterns of whether a vowel is more voiced or not. They group those they think of as less voiced as "thin". They also group similar sounds. Thin sounds A (at) I (it) Uh (cut. however, this vowel is said very quickly) Eh (set) "Thick" sounds Ah (saw, aha) Oh (snow) Ey (also considered a blend of A (at) and Eh.) U (true) O (shua, sometimes represented with "ah") Alphabet The Sajan make use of a modified Thravic script. It is extremely similar to the characters used in the north, and the Sajan also operate on a Base 10 system like their northern equivilants. Phonotactics Grammar Vocabulary Example text Category:Languages